The FBI has arrested 22 Nigerians allegedly involved in a financially motivated sextortion scheme linked to more than 20 teenage suicides in the United States since 2021, the agency announced in a statement on its website.
In the report published on Thursday, April 24, 2025 the arrests were part of a first-of-its-kind global operation, codenamed Artemis, carried out with law enforcement agencies in Canada, Australia, Nigeria, and the United Kingdom.
The FBI launched Operation Artemis nearly two years ago after receiving thousands of reports of teenage boys being coerced into sharing sexually explicit images online, then blackmailed with threats of exposure unless they paid.
“As a result of Operation Artemis, FBI investigations led to the arrest of 22 Nigerian subjects, with at least one arrest linked to an American victim who took their own life,” the agency stated.
The FBI and its partners interviewed suspects at the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) offices in Lagos, Nigeria.
In these sextortion schemes, minors—typically boys—are contacted online by individuals posing as young women who persuade them to exchange intimate images. Once obtained, the images are used to demand money under threat of public exposure.
Investigators revealed that even when victims comply with demands, the extortion often continues and threats escalate.
“Analysis of victims’ phones and social media accounts revealed heartbreaking narratives of young children enduring panicked negotiations in desperate attempts to protect their privacy,” the FBI said.
The FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Centre (IC3) recorded over 34,000 sextortion victims in 2023, a figure that rose to over 54,000 last year, with financial losses nearing $65 million over two years.
Between October 2021 and March 2023, US authorities recorded more than 12,600 minors—mainly boys—targeted in sextortion attempts. Reports to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) spiked from 10,731 in 2022 to 26,718 in 2023.
Similarly, the Australian Federal Police reported around 300 new sextortion cases each month.
In Nigeria, FBI Special Agent Matthew Crowley interviewed the suspects to understand why they pursued sextortion instead of other scams like romance fraud or business email compromise.
“One subject said, ‘It’s easy money. I can just move on to the next one if I don’t get any traction,’” Crowley reported.
She added: “It makes sense why they would choose this method. They could target 40 victims a day and maybe get three to pay. If each pays $200, that’s $600.”
The devastating impact of sextortion was highlighted by an American father whose 16-year-old son died by suicide after being targeted.
“Everything that he loved, every college ambition he had, every girl he liked, every friend he had—those were all threatened instantly,” the father said. “Imagine someone breaking into your home at night and shooting your son. This was even worse. He was so terrified he shot himself.”
